Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Naval Investigation Squad
by CrizBN
Summary: Our heroes from the MCRT have gotten themselves in yet another predicament. This time, it's not a murder, a terror attack, or espionage. One of their own has gone missing, and its up to the rest of them to find him. However, this will be no small feat, no sir! Because Tony's gone into the Twilght Zone! Haha, just kidding. It's actually the pokemon world. Yeah. PMD plus NCIS. Enjoy.
1. Tony DiNo-Show

_DING!_

A man wearing a black suit and carrying a box of donuts stepped out of the elevator and into the NCIS squadroom. He looked around and noticed that he was the only living soul on the floor. Still, not surprising, considering it was still dark outside. He proceeded to his desk. It was one of four, arranged in a little group that he affectionately referred to as the "bullpen."

Tony DiNozzo sat down and opened up his box of donuts. Maybe he'd share some with McGee.

"Nah."

He picked one up and took a bite. He would have had another, but he was interrupted by some rattling from behind Gibb's desk.

"Who's there?" he asked, mouth full of donut. He set down the donut in the box, grabbed his gun from his desk, and ventured over to his boss's desk. Just as he approached it, a figure jumped out from behind the desk and pushed past him. "Hey!"

Tony gave chase. The figure led him down hallway after hallway-hallways Tony knew like the back of his hand. And today, he was lucky. The figure had run straight into a dead end hall.

"End of the line, pal," said Tony. It was only now he looked over the figure more carefully. It was wearing a full-body black cloak, complete with hood, that draped all the way to the floor. It was facing away from him, unfortunately, but based on its height and shape, it was a man. Tony drew his gun and commanded, "Turn around slowly."

It did just that, and it was immediately apparent that the figure was no man. It may have had a vaguely humanoid shape, but it was completely black, with thin spindles for legs. There was a red growth on its neck, and its blue eyes stared at Tony as if they were judging him.

_What the hell? _Trying to appear calm, he commanded, "Show me your hands!"

It didn't fool the pitch-black pokémon. It complied, setting one of its hands in front of it. Then it brought one behind it. Suddenly, it started shooting out Dark Pulses of energy.

Reacting on instinct, Tony started shooting. He got off two shots before he was hit, at which point he buckled and dropped his sidearm. After only a second of the attack, Tony passed out on the floor of the hallway, the energy pulsing around his body.

* * *

[INSERT OPENING THEME HERE]

* * *

Chapter One: Tony DiNo-Show

* * *

Timothy McGee was munching on a donut. He felt a little guilty about taking it from Tony's desk, but he shouldn't have left the box open if he wanted to keep them all for himself.

A young blonde woman walked into the bullpen and looked at McGee. "Where'd you get donuts?"

"Hmm?" McGee swallowed his mouthful. He gestured at Tony's desk. "There, that box."

"Sweet! I didn't have breakfast; I woke up late," said Eleanor Bishop, a girl who did not suit her first name. She looked in the box. "Why does one of them have a bite out of them?"

"That one's probably Tony's."

"Why did he leave it unfinished? Also, where _is _Tony?"

Not really caring, McGee said, "I dunno. Bathroom?"

"Did you see him go?"

"No, but I just got here."

Thinking it over, Bishop decided that there were more pressing matters than where Tony got off to at the moment, like whether she would be having a glazed donut or a jelly-filled donut.

It was at this point that Abby walked in, clad in her usual Gothic clothes. "Have any of you guys seen Tony?"

"No, why?" asked McGee.

"I have a bad feeling that he's in trouble," explained Abby.

"It's probably nothing," said Bishop. "I think he's in the bathroom."

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was a man well known for showing up with little to no warning. This time was no exception.

"Where's DiNozzo?" he said after appearing almost literally out of thin air.

"Bathroom, I think," said McGee.

Gibbs responded, "No, he isn't. I just came from there."

"Then where is he?" asked Bishop.

"GibbsGibbsGibbsGibbs!"

He turned to Abby. "What?"

"I think Tony's in trouble."

"Why?"

"I got a feeling. Also, I went looking around and I found something. Follow me."

* * *

Abby led Gibbs and his team to the dead-end hallway.

"This is a hallway, Abby," said McGee.

"I know, but look!" She pointed out two pieces of brass on the floor, right next to a discarded firearm.

Gibbs crouched down to the floor. Abby pulled out a pair of latex gloves and handed them to Gibbs.

"Was she carrying those around?" whispered Bishop.

McGee advised, "Don't ask."

Gibbs, now wearing gloves (Rule Two) picked up the gun. It was a Sig-Sauer P228, the standard-issue sidearm to all NCIS Special Agents. The serial number identified it as DiNozzo's gun, a fact that would have blown right over Gibbs's head if he hadn't have been up all last night doing paperwork. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was where the casings came from. "This is Tony's gun. It was fired. Why?"

Gibbs stood up and imagined briefly where the gun would have been pointing. There were only two directions that made sense. The way they came or the end of the hallway. Looking at the end of the hallway, Gibbs noticed a small hole. He went over to it and said, "This is where the bullet landed."

"There's only one hole, Boss," said McGee. "Where's the other one?"

Bishop said, "What if there is no other hole?"

"What do you mean?" asked McGee.

"What if it's stuck in the person Tony was shooting at?"

"That would explain why there's one hole."

"I see a bigger problem here," said Gibbs.

"What?"

"Why would Tony drop his gun and run off?"

McGee and Bishop couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer and just stared.

* * *

Tony was dead. He was very certain of that fact. He dropped his weapon, passed out in the vicinity of a clearly very dangerous being, and he felt perfectly fine. If he was alive, certainly there would be some sort of pain, right?

"Oh, gosh. Is he alright?"

Yep. Definitely dead.

"Come on. Get up!"

Something started pushing on him. Couldn't they see he was busy being dead?

Tony said, "I'm getting up. Jeez." He pushed himself up off the ground, feeling strangely off-balance. He put a hand up to his head, suddenly feeling the beginnings of a headache. But something was wrong. He didn't feel nearly enough digits on his hand, and his face felt a bit too long. He opened his eyes, and was a little shocked by the bright light that met him. He shielded his eyes and looked around. He was in a clearing in a forest. It was around noon, considering how the sun filtered through the leaves of the canopy to create almost vertical pillars. He found that a little odd, because wasn't he last in-

Suddenly, he noticed his hand. It was green, had only two digits, and had leaves coming off the back of it.

"Um, are you okay?" asked the voice from earlier.

Tony looked at the source. It was about half as tall as he was. A small, brown-furred, fox-like creature with a white ruff around its neck was staring up at him.

"Hey," it asked, "are you okay?"

Tony was almost speechless. He breathlessly said, "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

* * *

_**A/N:**** As is traditional amongst us FanFiction authors, I'm going to leave you all a nice, short message here. As you can see, I now have two active projects going on. Very, very exciting stuff. I can assure you that I will most definitely maybe update in a somewhat often manner, I hope. Yeah.**_

_**Anyhow, as always, review, favorite, all that lovely stuff. Also, If you'd like, you can try to guess the name of the Eevee Tony just met. I'm drawing a blank here. Have a great night.**_


	2. On the Case

A lanky teenager was hiking through the woods, a typical summer activity for his age group. He wasn't there to look at the nature, though. He was holding a prepaid phone to his ear.

"Alright," said the voice over the phone. "Go left."

He stopped and looked left, pushing his glasses up on his face with his free hand. "Are you sure? There's not really a trail in that direction." There was quite a bit of undergrowth, with a few pointy branches sticking out in dangerous-looking directions.

The voice on the other side huffed in impatience. "I said, 'Go left.'"

"Okay. Jeez." The teen sighed. He really should have put on a less expensive pair of jeans. After a minute of pushing through the undergrowth, he came into a clearing.

"Good," said the voice. "You're in the clearing."

"How do you know where I am?" asked the teen.

"GPS, duh. Now, walk forward 10 paces and look right."

He complied. Upon looking right, he gasped and jumped back in fright. "Oh, Christ!"

"What? What is it?" asked the voice.

"There's a dead guy here!" There, lying in the weeds, was a man's body, dressed in a navy uniform.

"Oh, that's him."

"What?! You wanted me to meet a dead guy?!"

"I'll call you back." The voice hung up.

* * *

[INSERT OPENING THEME HERE]

* * *

Chapter Two: On the Case

* * *

There was a knock on the door of Leon Vance's office. Without any confirmation from the Director, Gibbs came through the door.

"You called?" he asked.

"Yes." Vance stood up from his desk as he usually did for these talks with Gibbs. "DiNozzo is missing?"

"It's nothing you need to worry about," assured Gibbs.

"Actually, I think it's my job to worry about this sort of thing."

"We have it under control."

There was another knock on the door.

"Come in," said Vance.

McGee leaned into the room. "Boss, you need to see this."

Vance waved them out, and Gibbs followed McGee back to the bullpen. "What is it?"

McGee grabbed the remote and hit a few buttons. A video appeared on the screen. "This a security feed from earlier today."

The time-stamp read 5:42 A.M. It showed Tony walk in with a box of donuts and sit at his desk. He began eating a donut. Suddenly, Gibb's desk shook visibly. Tony stood up and went to investigate. As he approached, a dark figure emerged from behind the desk and pushed past Tony. He gave chase immediately.

"Somebody went through your desk?" asked Bishop.

"How did they get in?" asked Gibbs.

McGee said, "I don't know."

"You don't know," restated Gibbs with a mix of disbelief and thinly veiled disapproval.

"Here's the other clip."

The time-stamp read 5:45 A.M. It showed Tony cornering the figure and leveling his pistol at the figure. It turned around. It was too dark to be seen by the camera, but Tony recoiled visibly. The figure suddenly fired Dark Pulses of energy at Tony. Tony fired twice and hit the figure once. It grabbed its shoulder as Tony collapsed to the floor. Suddenly, a hole opened up in one of the walls, except there was no room on the other side. Only a vortex. The camera feed stopped suddenly.

"Why did you stop the feed?" asked Gibbs.

"The data's encrypted," explained Bishop. "Someone's tried to hide it."

"Decrypt it, then."

McGee said, "The next frame we can recover is from 5:50 A.M., and Tony's gone by then."

"Recover all of it. And find out who tampered with the system."

Gibbs walked out of the room. McGee looked at the screen with apprehension. This was going to be a monster of a job.

* * *

Tony was looking at himself. Between the red front, the green everything else, and the leaves coming off of his wrists and his rear, he was very close to panicking. "What the hell happened to me? I look like a freak."

"You look normal for a Grovyle," offered the Eevee.

"What's a Grovyle?"

The Eevee cocked his head. "It's what you are, isn't it?"

"..." Tony considered that possibility for a moment. "It shouldn't be," he said.

"Um..."

"I'm supposed to be human," explained Tony.

"A human? Those are the fairy tale creatures, right?"

"Fairy tales? _I'm _a human!"

The image the Eevee was getting was very worrying. "...do you need help?" _Mental help?_

"I'm still a little in shock here. Where am I?"

"Little Woods."

"Yeah, that's not a lot of help. How about a country, or a continent? Hell, I'd even be content knowing what planet I'm on."

"Um, you're _really_ weird. I should probably go..." The Eevee turned to leave.

Tony called, "Hang on, kid."

"What is it?" he asked a little warily as he turned back.

"Are there any towns nearby?"

"Yeah. There's Pokémon Square really close by."

"What's a pokémon?"

"It's what we are."

"You said I was a Grovyle."

"Well yeah, um..." The Eevee thought for a moment. "It's like we're both plants, but you're a tree and I'm a flower."

"Oh. So 'pokémon' is the overarching term for freaks like us."

"We're not freaks!" exclaimed the Eevee. "Well, _I'm_ not a freak..."

"What are you trying to say, kid?"

Suddenly, a female voice cried out, _"Help!"_

Tony and the Eevee turned to the source of the voice, a large butterfly flying towards them. Tony asked, "What is it?"

"My son fell into a crevice!"

"Oh, no!" said the Eevee. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know... I—he was right next to me, and then—"

"Lady," said Tony, transitioning seamlessly into cop mode. "Slow down. Tell me exactly what happened."

"I... My son and I, we were going through the woods, and then a crack opened up in the ground. I barely noticed because I was flying at the time, but—my daring Caterpie! Oh—!"

"Caterpie. That's your son, right?"

"Y-yes."

"We'll get him out of there."

_"We?" _asked the Eevee.

Tony said, "Come on, kid. You're not just gonna abandon someone in need of help, are you?"

The Eevee steeled himself. "No. You're right! Let's go!"

They ran towards the crevice.

* * *

McGee was leaning over his desk, cradling his head in his hands.

"Argh, I can't make any sense of this."

Bishop looked up from the paperwork she was filing. "What's up?"

"I can't decrypt this. I've tried every backdoor, shortcut, and mathematical weakness I can think of, and nothing works."

"Maybe you should take a break."

"No. Gibbs'll kill me if he thinks I'm slacking off."

Bishop nodded knowingly. "Yeah. Tell you what. I've got a bag of chips in my bag. You can have it."

"Really?"

"Yup. You look like you could use a pick-me-up."

"Thanks. You're a life-saver." McGee crossed the bullpen and started going through Bishop's bag. When he pulled out the bag of chips, a rectangular box of plastic fell to the floor with a clunk.

"Hey! Careful!" called out Bishop.

McGee picked up the device. It reminded him of something "Is this a Game Boy?"

Bishop turned to face McGee. "It's a 3DS, actually. You didn't break it, did you?"

"No." McGee opened it. "Why are you carrying this around?"

"I get bored on the bus."

He turned it on out of curiosity. The little machine lit up with a little jingle. He took a look at the game loaded in and almost scoffed. "Pokémon, really?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"Isn't that a kid's game?"

Bishop simply said, "It's fun. And it's also really deep, too."

He scoffed under his breath. "Yeah, sure." McGee remembered playing Pokémon himself. Back in college, when the Game Boy was the coolest thing. He remembered it fondly, but it seemed a bit childish, even back then. "Did they run out of colors?"

"What do you mean?"

"'Pokémon X' isn't an imaginative name, is it?"

After making a silent approach, Gibbs asked, "Playing games, McGee?"

McGee nearly dropped the 3DS in shock. "Boss! Uh, no, I was just—"

Gibbs interrupted him. "Get your gear. We've got a dead marine."

"What about Tony?"

Gibbs frowned at McGee. His expression said it all. _You think I don't know that?_

"I'm gonna grab my gear." McGee hastily stuffed the console back in Bishop's bag and ran to his desk.

* * *

Tony and his new friend were searching around for Caterpie.

Hoping to break the awkward silence that had developed, Tony asked, "So, what sort of pokéman are you?"

"It's _pokémon. _And I'm an Eevee."

"What's your name, kid?"

"I'm Leaf," said Leaf. "What_'s _your name?"

"Anthony DiNozzo."

After a moment, Leaf asked, "Which one is it? Anthony or DiNozzo?"

"It's both."

"How can a pokémon have two names?"

"Humans generally have a first name and a last name."

"Why?"

Tony thought about it for a moment. "The first one is a name used to refer to you. The last one refers to your family."

"That sounds confusing."

"It isn't."

"Well, what do I call you, then?"

"My friends call me Tony."

"Tony?"

"Yeah."

"...That's a funny name!" Leaf exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah? What kind of name is Leaf?"

"One that makes sense."

They came across a few seed-like pokémon. Some Sunkern were floating around.

Noticing that there was a face on each one, Tony decided to call out, "Hey! Have you seen a kid come through here recently? A Caterpie or something?"

They all turned around, looking at Tony and Leaf with dead eyes.

"Kid, is this normal behavior?"

"Oh, no..."

"Kid, talk to me."

"I hope you know how to fight," warned Leaf.

"What are you—?"

Without any further warning, the Sunkern all charged at once.

Tony reacted by reaching to his side, before remembering he didn't have his gun. "Shit," he muttered.

Leaf got into a fighting stance and shouted, "Swift!" He shot out a bunch of stars which swiftly hit all of the Sunkern.

Tony was speechless. He started hitting the pokémon swarming him with his fists. Then, dimly, he felt something from the edge of his senses. He grabbed it and the next time he swung, he found that the leaves on the backs of his wrists had merged into a pair of matching blades. Pleasantly surprised, he slashed away at the Sunkern swarming him until they were all on the ground.

"Now that's a knife," he wisecracked.

"Actually, that's Leaf Blade."

"Excuse me?"

"You used a move." As the leaves on the back of Tony's wrists separated and faded to their "normal" green, Leaf explained, "Pokémon can use moves which have various special effects, like my Swift."

"Really? You gotta teach me how to use Swift, then."

"Oh, uh, I don't think Grovyle can learn Swift."

"What are you talking about?"

"Certain pokémon can only learn certain moves."

"Then what moves can I learn?"

"I dunno. I'm not an encyclopedia."

"Sure had me fooled."

Leaf didn't know what to think of that. "Uh, thanks?"

"Whatever, kid. Let's just find that Caterpie."

* * *

Gibbs pulled the car into the parking lot at Greenbelt Park. Ducky's van was already parked there. As soon as the team stepped out of the car, an elderly member of the park police approached them.

"Are you Agent Gibbs?" he asked.

Gibbs displayed his badge and ID in response.

"Great. Come on, I'll take you to the site."

They started following him down a forest path.

"Yeah, some kid found the body. He was in a real state. Still, better off than your guy. Isn't far now."

"He's still at the crime scene, right?" asked Bishop.

The police officer nodded. "Of course he is. I'm not a fool. I know your procedures. Besides, he seemed mighty shifty."

"What do you mean?"

"Seemed like he was hiding something. Here we are."

Gibbs immediately ordered, "McGee, search for evidence. Bishop, pictures." They got to work.

Dr. Mallard and Jimmy Palmer were already on the scene. They were sticking a temperature probe into the victim's liver. Palmer read out, "Twenty-eight point five degrees Celsius."

"And what does that mean?" asked Gibbs.

"Ah, Jethro," said Ducky. "Good to see you. It mean that our victim has been dead for only six hours."

"He was killed in the early morning?"

"That's right," said Palmer. "You gotta wonder what he was doing out here. I mean, it's off the trail."

"He was probably brought here postmortem. His uniform is, for the most part, immaculate," said Ducky. "Had he run here, there would probably be tears, or at the very least stains, on his trousers."

Gibbs knelt down to look at the body more closely. The service uniform he was wearing seemed freshly laundered. The markings on it identified the victim as a lance corporal. "Were you able to ID him?"

Palmer said, "Yeah. We checked his fingerprints against the database. He's Lance Corporal Mason Ryer. Not in active duty right now."

"Any next of kin?" asked Gibbs. That was always his least favorite part.

"Nobody on file."

"Cause of death?"

"He appears to have died of asphyxiation—note the bloodshot eyes—but there are no ligature marks or bruises anywhere on the body," said Ducky.

"Maybe he was smothered with a pillow?" offered Palmer.

"Is that even possible?" asked Gibbs.

Ducky said, "If he was smothered, then there would have doubtlessly been a struggle. To hold this man down would have required a lot of strength. And even then, you would expect to find signs of a struggle. There are none."

"Maybe he was drugged."

"Possibly. I'll know more after I conduct an autopsy." Ducky packed his things and stood up. "Palmer, prepare our friend here for transport."

"Got it." Palmer prepared a body bag.

Gibbs walked away to collect evidence and maybe a cup of coffee, too. He had a lot of work to do.

* * *

**_A/N: This chapter isn't as polished as I hoped it would be, but I just want to give you guys something. Hopefully it's good enough._**

**_Anyway, thanks for the feedback and the favorites and all the other things. Have a nice day._**


	3. Confrontation

For informal interrogations (interviews, as the publicity department would call them), Gibbs and his team preferred to use one of the many meeting rooms in the building. It tended to put the interviewee at ease.

"What were you doing in the woods, Steven?" asked Gibbs.

The lanky teenager sitting across from him fidgeted uncomfortably. "Wow, straight to the point." He took a sip from the cup of water on the table. The relaxing environment did little to calm his nerves, and he could feel the senior agent's glare tearing him apart. "I was hiking."

"You don't look like the kind of person who hikes."

It was true. Steven was a very nerdy-looking individual and had pale skin. He clearly didn't get out much. "Yeah, a, uh, friend of mine made me do it."

"Where's this friend of yours?"

"He—" Steven was cut off by a loud ringtone. He pulled out his cell phone, but it was off. "Uh..."

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. A gesture that asked, _Are you going to get that?_

Steven pulled out the prepaid phone. As he did so, Gibbs's eyes narrowed. Steven spoke into the phone. "Hello?"

"Put it on speaker," commanded the voice on the other side.

"What? But I'm—"

"I know where you are," interrupted the voice. "Put it on speaker and set the phone on the table."

Steven did just that.

"Hello, Agent Gibbs," said the voice.

* * *

[INSERT OPENING THEME HERE]

* * *

Chapter Three: Confrontation

* * *

"Who is this?" demanded Gibbs as he stood up by instinct.

"Straight to the point. That's what I like about you, Special Agent. Sorry to hear about the break-in."

Slightly surprised, Gibbs said, "That hasn't been made public."

The voice chuckled slightly at Gibbs's tone. "Don't worry. I'm not about to spill your precious secrets. I'm here to talk to you about the case at hand."

"What do you know?"

"I know where your very Special Agent DiNozzo is."

That surprised Gibbs, but he played along. "Where is he?"

"Oh, wrong question. I think you'll find that 'what' is the more pertinent question."

"What?"

"Exactly!" the voice exclaimed jubilantly. "You have a good head on your shoulders."

Gibbs was losing his patience. "Stop the bullshit. Tell me what I want to know."

"The first step to the answer to your questions is sitting across from you. Until next time, Agent Gibbs." The voice hung up, letting an uncomfortable silence fall over the meeting room.

* * *

After quite some time, Tony and Leaf managed to find Caterpie wandering around the deepest part of the crevice.

"Is that him?" asked Tony.

Leaf nodded. "Yeah. That's Caterpie."

"Good." Tony stepped forward and called out, "Hey, kid!"

Caterpie turned to look over at Tony and only saw a threat. "Oh, no." He turned to run.

Leaf quickly jumped out from behind Tony. "Hey! Caterpie! It's me!"

"Leaf?" Caterpie turned around and looked at them both critically. "What are you doing here? Who's that with you?"

"I'm Tony. Your mother sent us to look for you."

Caterpie sighed. "Oh, gosh. She wasn't hysterical, was she?"

"Oh, yeah," said Leaf.

"I hope she's not too worried."

"Unfortunately..."

Tony interrupted. "Wait. You two know each other?"

"Of course!" said Leaf. "Everyone knows everyone around here."

"Small town, eh?"

"Well, not really small. More like close-knit."

Caterpie cut in, "Hey, um, did you fellas find the exit to this place?"

"Of course," said Tony. "We should get going."

Leaf smiled. "Yeah, before your mom gets any more worked up."

The three of them started to make their way out of the crevice.

* * *

McGee and Bishop stood on the other side of the mirror in interrogation. They looked at the computer geek sitting across from them with mild interest.

"If Tony were here, he'd probably be talking about Gibbs's interrogation techniques."

"Yeah."

In the room itself, Steven was fidgeting. "Uh, is there anybody out there? I've been here for, like, half an hour!"

As always, Gibbs came through the door with perfect timing. He sat across from Steven and started laying out pieces of evidence on the table.

"Look, uh, I can explain," said Steven.

"Oh, I'm sure you can," said Gibbs, not even looking up at Steven as he arranged his things.

After a second or two of this, Steven stuttered, "I-I've never seen that guy in the woods before."

"I believe you."

"I mean, I—" Steven stopped. "Excuse me?"

"I believe you." Gibbs finally looked up at Steven. "That surprise you?"

"Uh, a little..." Gibbs looked down again, sorting through papers. After a bit more silence, Steven added, "Uh, I want to help your investigation in any way I can, Agent Gibbs."

Gibbs put the prepaid phone on the table. "Start by telling me who called you."

"Well, I don't really know who he is. I mostly communicate with him over the internet. I never actually heard his voice until yesterday when he sent that phone to my house."

"Did you give him your address?"

"No. Of course not. That's what scared me. He knew where I lived and I never told him."

"Maybe he traced your UP address."

"What? Oh. You mean _IP_ address. And no. That's not possible. My house doesn't have internet. I have to use my neighbor's Wi-Fi."

"Wi-Fi?"

"That basically means internet. But anyway, he sent me this phone and the moment I took it out of the envelope, it started ringing. Like in the _Matrix! _This guy's got to have been nearby to have been able to time the call like that. There's no way that was a coincidence."

Gibbs's expression changed slightly. Kid might've been a dork, but he had a good head.

The phone started to ring. Gibbs signaled McGee, took the phone and answered it himself. "Gibbs."

McGee immediately initiated a trace.

"I know it's you," said the voice. "No doubt you're interrogating my unwilling accomplice. I'm certain you've started to put things together."

"No idea what's going on," said Gibbs.

"Really? That's disappointing. I expected more of the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Anthony spoke very highly of you, I hope you know, before we parted ways. Go ahead, ask."

"Ask what?"

"Oh, stop stalling for time, Agent Gibbs. Ask the question or I hang up right now."

Gibbs spoke deliberately. "Where is DiNozzo?"

"Ah, there it is. Any second now, Mr. Gemcity will discover my location. And then you'll know just who you're dealing with."

McGee froze for a second in surprise.

"What?" asked Bishop. "What's wrong?"

"That's my pen name. How did he—?" The search returned a location.

NCIS Headquarters.

"I hope you have nothing important to tell Miss Scuito."

* * *

Abby was in her office, looking for some appropriate props. She had to get prepared for Gibbs's inevitable visit, and she had a very strong feeling one would be coming soon. She had a lot to tell him. Nothing that immediately solved the case, but some pretty suspicious information nonetheless.

Once she found the appropriate gizmos to explain the more technical aspects of her discoveries to Gibbs (for about ten seconds before he asked her to get to the point), she came out of her office area and into her lab. She started laying out the gadgets, but stopped when she realized someone was in the doorway.

She knew immediately that it wasn't Gibbs (if it was, she wouldn't have noticed him), but it was probably someone else who needed her technical expertise. She quickly put the whatsits she was carrying on the table and faced her visitor.

It was a dark, hooded figure, and Abby couldn't get a good look at his face. It spoke, "Hello, Abigail..."

"Uh, hi," said Abby somewhat apprehensively. _Who is this?_

"I've been looking for you."

Abby took a step back. This guy definitely wasn't supposed to be in her lab. "How did you get in here?"

"Why are you so defensive? I mean no harm."

_I seriously doubt that. _Abby kept backing away, keeping the intruder in her line of sight. It was a good thing she could navigate her lab blindfolded (something she actually tried once, just to test herself). She needed to get to the duct tape.

The figure extended a dark, beast-like hand at her.

"Get out of my lab," Abby said.

"Why don't we both take a vacation, Miss Scuito?" The figure started charging up a Dark Pulse of energy, its hand suddenly becoming charged with power.

_That's—! _Abby quickly ducked behind a counter, narrowly missing the intruder's attack. It instead hit the large TV screen on the back wall. The TV immediately exploded, showering Abby with shards of glass. She barely managed to suppress a scream.

"Don't make this more difficult than it has to be."

"Stop! NCIS!"

"Gibbs!" Abby shouted.

"Agent Gibbs, a quiet approach, as you are known for," said the intruder. "We meet at last."

"Put your hands behind your head."

"I should take you both. Agent DiNozzo could use some company."

"Hands on your head!" shouted Gibbs.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with, do you?" the figure asked. "No matter. I'll play along." The figure removed its cloak, brought its claw-like hands to its head, and turned around.

Gibbs maintained his pensive expression, but he was honestly shock, a rarity for him.

Completely exposed, Darkrai gave what could only be described as a smirk. "Hello, Agent Gibbs."


End file.
